About

Welcome to the Sometimes 8 Irons – where talking is not enough – only action will suffice. Where GO and DO is the mantra and failing is totally fine but refusing to try is not.

Life as an Irons is never boring and always, always LOUD. We are an imperfect family navigating bumps and bruises in special needs and trauma parenting. It is fun and funny and chaotic and that’s exactly the way we like it. It can involve a lot of poop from the little boys and flatulence from the big boys. The Irons girls have basically been holding their noses for years.

We (Christy and Nigel) began our journey thirteen years ago as foster parents. Our own childhoods were rich with adoption and foster care experience and we believe children should have the opportunity to thrive in a home with support and love. We began with fostering, then adopting, just one tiny boy (who now stands at six foot five and counting!) and quickly grew, adding four more siblings. Our lone biological child came along at this point, and we thought our family may have been complete.

Or not so much. In 2015, we began the journey into international adoption and have since added four more Irons to our flock. These boys, thoughtfully referred to as the “Amerikrainians” have brought so many lessons to our home and continue to teach us and remind us that every child deserves a chance – to love, to thrive, to be secure and cared for.

We Irons are not sweet or precious; we are just not good at it. We believe in the innate value of humanity and the idea that we all have something good to offer the world, no matter how our story began. We are all living this broken life trying to write our best story and learning to celebrate the struggle.

We welcome you, kind reader, to join us in this journey and share your experiences of unconditional love, support and a desire to GO and DO with us.